Nintendo Bringing Pokemon To iPad In Trading Card Form

Paul Tassi
, ContributorNews and opinion about video games, technology and the internetOpinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

The eternal dream of
Nintendo showering the smartphone/tablet community with their Pokemon license may still never come to pass, but at least one aspect of the series is heading that direction. The Pokemon Trading Card Game is coming to iPad, competing with other recent digital card battling games that have found success on the platform like Hearthstone.

The quick snapshot of the game comes from Josh Wittenkeller on Twitter, and its existence has been confirmed by an official rep of The Pokemon Company. The new game is being showed off at the World Pokemon Championship this weekend, but there's no timetable for an official release as of yet. The game already exists on Windows and Mac, but this is the first news of a portable tablet release.

I expect to see a lot more digital card games coming to tablets, even as established ones like Magic: The Gathering and Hearthstone are already there. The medium is absolutely perfect for card games, though it should be said you don't see all that many sky high on the app charts like you have with Flappy Bird clones, infinite running titles or shape-matching puzzle games.

The truth is that generally speaking, the app market rejects complexity. Even if a game like Hearthstone is relatively easy to pick up and play for the average gamer, the average gamer is not the average app store customer. Not to insult the intelligence of the general public, but it's very obvious that simpler games find more success than complex ones a lot of time in the market. Not always, surely, but a good deal of the time. That's why even if the iPad is a perfect medium for battle card games, they still have somewhat limited appeal. The same will likely be true for Pokemon, which is arguably more complex than something like Hearthstone. That said, developers should always strive to raise the general quality level of the tablet/smartphone game market, because lord knows it needs it.

As for Pokemon itself, this will inevitably start some new debate about how Nintendo must react to the changing winds and release all their games on the Android and
Apple app stores. I understand the sentiment, and it does seem like a logical transition, but this goes back to the "should Nintendo stay in the hardware game?" question that's being asked every few weeks any time a new Nintendo doom and gloom story comes to light.

While I think there's an argument to be made for Nintendo shifting to software for the console market, as evidenced by the poor sales of the Wii U limiting the reach of their phenomenal first party games, I can't say the same about mobile yet.

Nintendo understands the mobile market far better than they do consoles at the moment. Their handhelds remain some of the top selling video game systems of all time, and the 3DS is now the 12th highest selling piece of gaming hardware ever. Nintendo is absolutely not going to undercut it by releasing their games on smartphones and tablets.

That said, with 44M sold, the 3DS is still woefully short of even the Game Boy Advance (81.5M) and lightyears away from Nintendo's past smash hits, the original Game Boy (119M) and the DS (154M). Even if it's still doing pretty well, there is an obvious trend as there is more and more competition in the mobile games space as the years press on. And you can bet it's not the PS Vita putting pressure on them.

But Nintendo continues to offer a unique perspective on mobile games, creating quality titles that are leagues better than most offerings in any app store. Though Nintendo is designing mobile games for gamers, where app games are designed for literally anyone. Obviously one is going to have more broad appeal that the other.

We need both, however. Nintendo has created a great mobile experience for those who are willing to pay a little more for better games, and don't mind carrying around a piece of gaming-specific hardware, even in an age where your keys and wallet can be on your phone.

But hey, if you want a taste of what they could be like on tablets, maybe this new Pokemon game is for you. I'll certainly give it a shot, even if it's been fifteen years since I first opened up my dream pack of cards with a holofoil Charizard. That's worth what, like $500K now? I knew they were a good investment.